


Stand Still Like the Hummingbird

by Princessfbi



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Anxious Evan "Buck" Buckley, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Evan Buckley's Fun Facts, Growing Up With Anxiety, If You Squint - Freeform, Insecure Evan "Buck" Buckley, Mentions of Lone Star Crossover, Panic Attacks, Self-Esteem Issues, Soft Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Therapy, Worried Firefam, buddie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:46:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29194026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princessfbi/pseuds/Princessfbi
Summary: Buck woke up thinking of hummingbirds.Aka Buck wakes up in the midst of an anxiety attack and tries to get through the day.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Eddie Diaz, Evan "Buck" Buckley & Evan "Buck" Buckley's Parents, Evan "Buck" Buckley & Maddie Buckley
Comments: 18
Kudos: 274
Collections: 9-1-1 Tales





	Stand Still Like the Hummingbird

Buck was twelve when he learned that a hummingbird could flap its wings for about eighty beats per second. He was twelve and half when he did the calculations that a hummingbird could flap its wings four hundred and twenty times in seven minutes. He was seventeen when he finally realized why he was so fascinated with hummingbirds. 

Buck woke up thinking of hummingbirds. 

But he just had to get to the end of his shift. He was on the last leg of a twenty-four hour and he just had to get through that. Then, he could go home and deal with it.

In hindsight, Buck should’ve seen it coming but when he opened his eyes from the depths of exhaustive submerged sleep, he was suffocated by the weight of it instantly. Given his profession, Buck had gotten used to having to wake up with little time to grasp onto consciousness before throwing himself into work but that was always fueled by the adrenaline of a bell pulling him out of bed.

But this was different. Buck blinked awake and stared at the soft filters of sunlight peeking through the window shade as he waited for the paralyzing realization to wash off enough for him to get up.

At least, he knew how to function past the surprise of waking up with the humming under his skin settled in a steady staccato. It hadn’t always been that way and sometimes, he still felt like the scared teenager struggling to breathe, suffocating as the feelings he’d been taught to swallow and internalized threatened to drown him. It would take what felt like forever before he remembered how to move past the vulnerable feelings that swirled in his chest. 

Now, at least, he knew what had worked in the past. He forced himself to take a slow, deep breath in through his nose, lifting a hand to plug one nostril as he exhaled through the other and then switched to the other side. In through one and out through the other. In through one and out through the other. In through one and out through the other. 

If anyone walked in they would've seen Buck in the middle of his very deliberate breathing exercise and he would distract them with how it'd been one of his yoga instructor girlfriend's who taught it to him and how it was great for cardiovascular health. 

Nothing more. Nothing less. 

He wouldn't have told them it was because Keeley had the misfortune of witnessing one of his morning panic attacks. He wouldn't have told them about how she'd been so kind and understanding but he ultimately broke up with her three days later. He wouldn't have told them how he'd used the mindful breathing repetition most nights after he filed the lawsuit and how the day before the arbitration had been one of the worst ones in a while. 

Buck kept at it--- pinching one nostril to breathe in, holding, and then releasing to breathe out through the other--- until his body went cold as his hammering heart started to slow down. He let go of his nose and forced himself to take a slow, deep breath and then another for good measure. 

The humming stayed but the sharpness of the edgy spike in his chest dulled a little. 

He should've expected it but it was still enough to leave him breathless. 

It wasn't his first anxiety attack after all. 

It wasn't his first attack that he woke up with. 

It wasn't even his first attack triggered by the mere mention of his parents. 

So, he should've expected it. 

He _had_ expected it when Maddie called to warn him that his parents were coming. But that had been a fleeting thought after the initial wince of anticipation subsided. 

It was stupid. He'd been so confident in his progress that he'd just thought it wasn't going to happen and moved on. Didn't think about the flood of overwhelming feelings that he hadn't felt in a while. The kind of feelings that he'd asked once how he was supposed to handle them and his parents had told him, "What do you have to be anxious about? Get it together."

_“The world is an uncertain place, Evan. You have to protect yourself.”_

And he knew that was their way of trying to protect him; trying to teach him how to protect _himself_. But it rang too close to the same reprimands he grew up hearing too.

 _You’re making a scene._

_Stop talking so loud._

_It was one game, Evan._

_The world doesn’t revolve around you._

_Honestly, you can’t keep getting so worked up about stupid things like this, Evan._

_You can talk to me when you get your emotions under control._

Control. How do you get control when you feel like everything is already out of control? When your heart was hammering against your chest in an uncontrollable itching crescendo that just got higher and higher and higher---

Buck tried to burrow into his bunk even though he knew it was pointless for just a few more minutes of sleep but all he could focus on was the starchy feeling of his socks rubbing against the cheap cotton sheets. The sound was like glass shards falling into his ears and Buck winced into his pillow. The ache in his shoulders settled somewhere along his spine and he sighed with the understanding that he’d already missed the point of no return. It was inevitable now.

But he could try and grab a hold of it until he got home where he could break down in private and no one would see him making a complete mess of himself. He hadn’t had a chance to really use the techniques that Dr. Copeland had given him to calm himself down but they could work to keep it together until he was alone to embrace the panic.

Buck curled in on himself, taking a moment to be present and remind himself that he was okay, before he rolled his shoulders and pushed himself up.

The rest of the team were still asleep. Eddie’s face was hidden in his pillow with tufts of hair sticking up wildly at every angle. Chim was sprawled on his bunk with his foot hanging over the side and a soft snore whistling past his lips. Hen was curled around her pillow and twisted in a way that looked like she’d fallen asleep where she fell. 

The rest was well deserved. They’d been woken up three times throughout the night, running to the trucks and meeting Bobby as he left his captain’s quarters still blurry eyed but determined before racing off to whatever emergency they were needed at. Buck glanced at his watch and bit back a groan.

5:30.

They all still had about two more hours before they needed to get up and Buck had only been a sleep for two before that.

But the humming only kicked up a notch and he rubbed his face, resigned, before he shifted out from under the covers and made his way to the locker room.

The firehouse was quiet and soft as the morning seeped out the blues of the night but Buck kept his head down and tried to get the hiccuping repetition of his breath back under control.

It used to happen a lot when he was a kid. People who would get migraines can sometimes get those auras in their vision as their body's way of warning them before of the worst of the pain would hit. Buck wished he would get something similar. Maybe then he wouldn't feel like he was taken out at the knees and expected to keep running. By the time he realized his mouth was dry, where no amount of water could quench the tightness of his throat, and his heart was beating too fast, it would be too late. The humming under his skin would wake him from a dead sleep and buzz with every step he took. 

It used to hit him hard and fast when he was little. Maddie would find him hiding in her bed under the covers and stroking the frayed edges of her baby quilt she hadn’t let go of yet. Buck didn’t have his anymore after his mom told him he was too big for his and took it away. But Maddie still had had hers and it’d smelled like her and when he stroked the fabric it was one of the only ways he could ignore the humming.

He still had a torn quilt square that had fallen off in one of his keepsake boxes somewhere. He’d have to see if it was salvageable. Maybe getting a blanket made with it for Maddie and the baby. 

Buck winced as he swallowed through the sandpaper around his vocal chords and pushed himself through his morning routine.

He knew what he needed to do. He needed to focus on the humming; to slow down and redirect. Sometimes, Buck felt like the world was moving too fast by the time he could stand himself up again and he was stuck in molasses going to slow.

But other times it was the opposite. Sometimes, Buck felt like he was the one going too fast and there was never anyone to catch his hand to slow him down. He was too small and going too fast like a hummingbird caught in a gust of wind.

At some point, Buck found his way into the gym and awareness settled on his shoulders in the middle of a set of push-ups.

"Buck?" 

Buck bit back a flinch at the sound of his name echoing into his ears like it'd been pushed through cotton. Muffled but also so loud. Buck settled into a plank and turned to look up at Bobby. Bobby's brow was raised but his face was soft with sleep. 

Did the humming under his skin get so loud it woke Bobby up?

Bobby curled his arms over his chest and Buck dropped to his knees, shivering again as the chill air of the fire house settled over the sweat on his skin and deep into his muscles. 

“What are you doing up?” Bobby asked. “We still have a few hours.”

Buck winced. “Sorry, Cap. Did I wake you?”

If Bobby noticed the dodged question, he didn’t say anything and shook his head.

“No,” Bobby said. “I can always tell when someone is wandering the house when they should be asleep.”

He fixed Buck with a pointed look that Buck was just too far gone into his own head to really decipher but before he could stutter his way through an excuse the bell rang sharp and hard. Buck did flinch at that and Bobby saw.

“You good?” Bobby asked.

It was a weighted question; one that was layered by the concern of a friend but the testing challenge of a captain.

Was he good? He only ever wanted to be good. Buck didn’t understand when people decided he wasn’t good but it felt like he’d been trying to change their minds ever since and no one would listen to him.

The team were rushing from the bunks and heading towards the rigs. Eddie was the last one out, blurry eyed and swiveling his head around the station until his gaze landed on Buck and the tension slipped out his shoulders.

Bobby was still waiting, analyzing every twitch in Buck’s face. Buck pushed his weight into his fists on the ground and stood up.

“I’m fine,” Buck said and hurried after the rest of the team to the trucks where his turnout gear was ready for him to slip into.

The weight of his coat did wonders for the humming that itched under his skin. It was still there. It would be there until he let it out and released all the fluttering in his chest but the weight of his coat helped him get through most of the day. They were called out almost nonstop, driving through the streets of LA long after the sun inched up into the sky and glared down at their sleep deprived intensity. Buck's eyes felt heavy in his hollow head but he did his job. He moved on autopilot and took relief in the routine of it all. 

It was there but he could ignore it. 

At least until he got an e-mail from the PR department for the LAFD.

The celery and peanut butter were tasteless on his tongue as he pulled up his e-mail on his phone but he ate anyway after a pointed look from Chimney that reeked of sympathy and regret. If Buck wasn't too busy trying to hold himself together by his finger tips, he would tell him to spit it out because he'd been giving Buck that look all shift.

The e-mail was pretty standard. The department had started keeping track of any online mentioning of the LAFD from a nationwide net of local newspapers. Every month they were all e-mailed a newsletter that led to a lot of teasing and proud peacocking but was mostly ignored by everyone. It was only when they were mentioned by name that they were sent a separate e-mail. 

Buck frowned and wished for the weight of his turnout coat again. If it wouldn't draw unwanted attention, he would've just worn it for the rest of the day and rubbed his hands along the material whenever his heart slammed too hard or his lungs seized up because he'd started to hold his breath again. 

_LOCAL HERO JOINS WILDFIRE RELIEF_

It was a small blurb in his hometown's newspaper. Maybe two or three lines with his name in bold letters at the top talking about how he'd been part of the crew called to the wildfire in Texas. There wasn't even a picture. His parents wouldn't have even seen it probably. But what he didn't understand was why there was a comment section at the bottom of the article. Each one _stung_ and he couldn't tear his eyes away before he caught a word or two. Hershey was small but it wasn't that small. 

_"Didn't I go to school with this guy? He was a complete idiot. Hope they didn't have him---"_

Buck closed the browser fast after that. 

Suddenly, the peanut butter tasted like glue in his mouth and he pushed his uneaten snack away with a flick of his wrist, spitting out his mouthful in his napkin. 

His hands were shaking. Buck dropped his head down and curled them into a fist in his lap. 

Buck should’ve seen it coming. He’d been feeling the weight of on oncoming one for a couple of days--- he recognized the signs now--- but without fail he always seemed to be side swiped in surprise every time. At least now he knew how to function and the humming under his skin didn’t cripple him like it used to. There were just some days where it felt like the universe had it out for Buck. Days where it just felt like everything would pile on until Buck crumpled under the weight and would have no other choice than to stay on the ground and admit defeat. 

Well, he should but Buck was never really one to do what he was told to do. Years of authority and abandonment issues pretty much fueled the defiant part of Buck that never wanted to give up. He’d learned a long time ago that nobody else would be in his corner except for himself. Not his parents, not his friends, none of his coaches, not even Maddie. 

Maddie tried at least. 

But you couldn’t expect someone else to pick you up and put you back on your feet. And Buck was fine with that. Honest. He was used to it. It made him independent. By the time he was fourteen, he knew how to budget his money, to remember to drink plenty of water, to cook at least four basic meals that weren’t processed and frozen, how to practice safe sex that protected him as well as his partners, and how to be on his own. 

They say that the loneliest people are the ones surrounded by many. 

Point being that Buck knew how to survive. He knew how to function as a person. He knew how to cook and clean and get a job and even do his taxes all on his own. 

He was fine. He didn't need---

Buck sucked in a breath and held it before he exhaled. 

Dr. Copeland's voice reminded him of his tendency to self-isolate; his habit of overcompensating his hard earned independency into something rigid and unhealthy so that his true feelings didn't fit and he swallowed them down.

The bell rang like glass against his ears and he ran with the others to head out for another series of calls. The comments didn't mean anything. They hurt but in the end they were meaningless. 

_Honestly, you can’t keep getting so worked up about stupid things like this, Evan._

Buck hid his wince at that phantom reminder that had been playing on loop since he woke up with a roll of his shoulders and neck. Chim stared at him from his seat as he did so and opened his mouth like he wanted to say something before he tore his gaze away to look out the window. 

The weird tip toe movements were starting to get on Buck's nerve but soon they were thrown headfirst into another emergency and Buck focused on work. 

Hummingbirds didn't use their feet to launch themselves into flight. Their feet were too small and they didn't have knees so their wings had to do all the work. Buck used to wonder how tiring that must have been for the hummingbird with their wings flapping. 

Buck was beyond tired. His muscles ached and his head throbbed and he was too busy putting one foot in front of the other, counting down the minutes until his shift would be over, to notice that he'd gone nonverbal. 

Hen was the one who pointed it out. 

"You're quiet today, Buckaroo," Hen said when Buck had gotten himself another glass of water to try and sooth the dryness of his throat. "Everything okay?"

And Buck knew Hen meant well. Anyone who had ever asked meant well except for maybe his parents who cared but would rather he didn't make a scene. Buck was always touched, in hindsight, whenever anyone noticed. But the moment someone pointed out his silence was the moment his throat would close up and the words would stay stuck to his vocal chords like a fly trap in a hot sun. 

He shot her a smile that his face was a little too tired to lift all the way. 

"Fine," he forced himself to say and it felt like a herculean effort for his part. 

‘I’m fine’ had dropped to ‘fine’ and which would slip into shrugs and then nothing because he would be too busy trying to swallow back the anxiety or else it would drown him.

Hen’s skepticism burst the muted cotton stuffed sounds in his ears with a pop and suddenly the humming under his skin was swarming everywhere, turning sharp and cutting and overstimulating.

Which was when his body decided it had had enough. 

His body temperature dropped into freezing cold chills that climbed up from his ankles and settled against his too hot skin. 

It was too late, he realized. He wouldn't make it home. Hen had tipped him into oblivion and his eyes felt too small for his head and his ears rang as they picked up _every single sound._

The ever-climbing signs were so predictable he could laugh if he didn’t feel like he wanted to cry so much.

And all because his parents were coming to visit after years of being able to dodge them most of the time to avoid the fallout. But his parents were coming and they would be in his space. _His_ space. Not theirs. They would touch and criticize and judge and comment and---

It was too much. Everything was too much. The bell was too sharp and the footsteps of boots reverberated in his skull and he could _feel_ Chim’s eyes on the back of his head and he could touch the concern from Bobby and the smear of curiosity from his team because he wasn’t acting like himself and they all knew it and it was climbing too fast for him to hold onto because at some point he’d allowed himself to become detached from his body to the point that he was drenching himself in silence and Hen noticed and now that he’d crashed down back onto earth he was dizzy with the pounding headache and nausea and---

Buck stood from his spot and managed to walk down the stairs instead of running like he wanted to do before slipping into the bathroom.

He wasn’t going to make it home.

It was happening whether he liked it or not and he hadn’t been fooling anyone. The nonverbal was the final sign but the overstimulation was his kiss of death.

Buck’s vision blurred and he shoved the heels of his hands into his eyes as the high keening sounds slipped past his lips. 

_Never good enough._

_Please pay attention to me._

_Attention whore._

_Worthless._

_Spazz._

_Why are you talking so loud?_

_You have to protect yourself._

_You’re exhausting._

_Why are you so needy?_

_Don’t be annoying._

_Evan._

_Not everything is about you, Evan._

_Why couldn’t something be about him for once?_

Buck gasped and felt his body lean onto the wall. He slid down until his butt met tile that smelled of bleach and soap and was a little damp from when it’d been mopped that morning. Someone dropped something outside of the bathroom and it startled Buck so badly he almost fell sideways into the toilet bowl. His ears were still _ringing_ and it wouldn’t stop.

Buck tucked his elbows into his sides and pulled his knees up to his chest so he could take up as little amount of space as possible. Smallness had a way of swaddling you when the world felt misshaped and jagged. This was something Buck had learned early on and it was something he clung onto with each staggering breath. The cold tile of the wall and the even colder frigidness of the ceramic toilet only seemed to heighten the numbing rushing across his skin and the humming only increased.

Tears were already slipping past his eyes at the first catch of air in his throat and from that point on he was stuck on a ride he had no chance of stopping.

His mom had found him once like this; crying so hard he wasn’t making a sound because he couldn’t properly breathe.

 _Calm down._

She hadn’t meant it to sound so unkind but it had the same wave of dismissiveness that he was used to. His parents always seemed to do that. Either they dismissed him or suddenly they were zeroed in on one-minute detail and poking at it like it was a dead frog on a too hot drive way. She’d left him alone after she heard him take a breath, probably to give him some privacy, but all it had felt like was being dropped on the side of the road and forgotten. He’d been too big to hide in Maddie’s bed then. His limbs had grown out and his body had stretched and Maddie had been married to Doug for almost two years and he was all alone. So alone with nothing but the wings of hummingbirds trapped under his skin as the world went too fast without him and left him behind.

He couldn’t breathe. The air was too thin and he couldn’t breathe. Buck’s panic was silent and deadly and greeted him like an old friend. He couldn’t breathe and his parents coming felt like the beginning of a battle instead of a celebration of the calvary. Suddenly, all the work he’d done with Dr. Copeland fell flat to the floor and he couldn’t remember any of the things she’d tried to teach him because he was worthless and a failure and a waste of space.

 _No one will want you like this._

And he knows logically that isn’t true. Knows that there were people who loved him because they told him so and why would they lie about that. But that doesn’t change the fact that it is true in the more primal parts of his psyche. The deep, dark places that hardwired your body and kept you alive like flight or fight and sent signals of when you should eat or drink or sleep. It is true for his most basic self that was struggling to thrive in a world where he would never be anyone’s anything. He would never be someone’s favorite. Ironically, the same voice that laughed at him for how ridiculous that was also lived in the same dark space as that truth. It would poke at him like a bruise until he couldn’t help but curl around himself to protect the soft parts. It made him feel raw and exposed and fragile and breakable. Like a glass that would shatter if the decibel of sound was strong enough.

“Buck.”

He felt cracked. Cracked in a way that was always there but you forgot about until your finger caught on the ragged edge. He was like a plate with a crack that should have been thrown away, would eventually be thrown away, but was kept instead to live out a life of anticipation of being thrown away.

“Slow your breathing down, Buck. Slow down.”

Eddie. Of course, it would be Eddie who found him like this. His voice was the only voice that would ever be able to get through the ringing in his ears as blood rushed to his head and his lungs quivered with a need for air.

Buck gulped and the sudden inhalation got stuck in his Sahara Desert dry throat and he choked. The heat of Eddie being so close was exact in an endless frigidness. He wasn’t crowding him, he was just shielding him, and when Buck remembered how to function like an actual sane person he would thank him. Eddie's arm was braced on the toilet so that Buck’s head would fall on him rather than the ceramic lid if he hyperventilated so badly he passed out.

He’d only done that once in his life and he didn’t want a repeat of that so Buck tried breathing again.

“Good,” Eddie said. “That’s good.”

And Buck couldn’t see him but he knew he was there and it was an anchor he needed in a world of unseeing. But he wished he could see him.

“You’re okay,” Eddie said like he could hear the uptick of Buck’s heart rate as the strike of panic hit his spine again. “It’ll be over soon.”

It felt endless.

And then… it wasn’t.

“Can I touch you?”

Buck wanted the weight of his turnout coat again to remind himself that he mattered and he woke up every day doing something that was meaningful and he wasn’t wasting away like everyone thought he was but Eddie’s hands would do.

He was going too fast, humming too fast, but Eddie thought he could catch him and if anyone could do it, it was him.

“Yes,” Buck thought he said but he couldn’t be too sure since it sounded like a wail caught in a tangle of his throat.

But Eddie didn’t say anything. His simply brought his hands up and cupped them over Buck’s ears before he guided Buck’s face to press against his chest. He smelled like cinnamon and something spicy but he was warm and Buck wanted to burrow himself so deeply against him because he was freezing. He must have made a sound again but he was surprised to hear it muffled to his own ears, muted in a way that wasn’t overwhelming. Not too loud but not too quiet where the silence would send his heart racing again. His hands were so warm against Buck’s ears but they felt like they were the only thing keeping his head from rolling off his shoulders.

Eddie’s fingers reached and stroked through the short hairs at the nape of his neck and Buck all but melted against him. Eddie must have felt the tension bleed from Buck because he just pressed against Buck’s scalp until Buck’s face disappeared against the fabric of his uniform.

So quiet.

So dark.

Everything still.

Just the firm strokes against his neck into the base of his scalp.

“Good?” Eddie asked.

Despite the bliss of Eddie’s solid warmth, Buck grimaced because no, not really. Eddie offered up a reprieve but the humming was still there even in their stillness like how a hummingbird could float in serenity but its wings were still flapping eighty beats per second.

Eddie seemed to realize that was the wrong question because his fingers turned firm again and dragged a long line down the base of Buck’s skull.

“Better?” He asked instead.

Buck nodded because he was. He was still going to be bone tired for another day, he always was, but Eddie definitely made it better. He could feel his heartbeat slowing as some heat returned to his body. He could feel the smallness disappear like his muscles reflated. He was relaxing inch by inch like a hummingbird going into a torpor where they drift into a trance to rest.

Eddie was giving him stillness.

He could’ve sobbed. Buck didn’t know. He knew he was crying. But the relief of being caught was everything.

“We’ll figure it out, Buck.”

Buck was seventeen when he finally realized why he was so fascinated with hummingbirds. It was because the hummingbirds reminded him of the anxiety that had always hummed beneath his skin, singing against his nerves like the sound a hummingbird’s wings fluttering.

But he was twenty-nine when he knew what it was like to be a hummingbird, caught on the perch of Eddie's fingers, and to be still.


End file.
